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    Joined: Feb 2011
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    So. My DD is turning 14 this month. She has NEVER been 'pressured' to be older than she is. We've done a lot to flex her environment so that her asynchronous development can just... be.

    On the other hand, she IS grouped by grade for many many things, including those that are only tangentially about cognitive ability, which means that in sports, extracurriculars, etc. she often winds up feeling that she is "mediocre" at best in those domains. That's actually not true, as in many instances, she has competence which far outstrips AGE-mates and if she were placed synchronously, she'd look like a top 1%-er there, too. Well, okay-- maybe not athletically. LOL.

    She has struggled with perfectionism (socially prescribed variety-- so procrastination, task-avoidance, and linked directly to self-image in ways that are about punishment, never 'reward').

    We are concerned because she seems to be gravitating increasingly toward YOUNGER and YOUNGER peers-- and apparently dumbing down to fit in with them.

    In mixed age groups, socially, she'll gravitate to the middle schoolers. She has stopped reading books at her level (college) and begun reading (and in many cases, RE-reading) material that she was reading in 3rd or 4th grade. Her vocabulary has really slipped.

    She claims that this is interest-based, and not 'dumbing down.'

    The problem is that she is quite a target for the middle-school Lord of the Flies social scene... she's WAY too much a MarySue for them to resist subtly eroding her self-esteem in every imaginable way, while passive-aggressively maintaining what SEEMS (superficially) like being a 'good friend.' She has what I'd call two actual friends, and most kids this age are looking to take shots at her instead because she makes them feel a bit insecure. Recall, we live in a town where 30% of the kids are told they are "super-smart" and parents generally place a LOT of value on that attribute. DD is living proof that they might need to question that assumption, YK? Instead, they tend to question HER-- "Oh, you must not be taking a real AP class... it must be watered down... I could do that, too... that's not so special... I'll bet your parents do ____ FOR you, though... yeah, but you're not good at ____... but I'm more/less ___ than you..."


    She also claims (in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary) that her academic peers (3-5y older) "reject her" socially, and that the younger kids don't, and that THAT is why she is seeking them out.

    I don't really know what is going on with this. Is it social anxiety? Maybe, but what on earth is fueling it??

    Is it related to perfectionism and her insecurity re: risk-taking? Again, I'm not sure, but that doesn't seem to be all of it.


    I'm distressed by this attitude from her, though-- because she'll be a senior in high school next year, and she seems to have decided that she 'cannot' fit in with academic peers. I'm not sure WHY she has come to that particular conclusion, because it's not based on any reality that I can see.

    The person that we see is vastly less flakey, flighty, and... well, BLONDE-behaving... than the one that she seems to be presenting to groups of adolescents. She doesn't do this other than with real-life/in-person situations. As soon as a group knows her chronological age, she reverts to this immature behavior.

    OF COURSE when she acts like a 11-12yo boy, that's who is going to befriend her. Not many 17yo's want close social ties to tweens. The thing is, even people she HAS been friends with have abandoned her in the face of this kind of behavior (not that I blame them).

    Any advice, here? I'm puzzled to know how to help her.



    Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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    The thing is, most of her academic peers are pretty understanding about the typical developmental insecurities associated with being 12-14, having lived through them pretty recently themselves, YK?


    So THAT peer group has no trouble relating to her.

    It's the younger peer group that does, quite honestly-- because they have NOT lived through being in a high-pressure junior year of high school and selecting colleges, thinking about scholarships and a CV, etc.

    She doesn't see this-- at all-- however. She seems to be mentally stuck on the notion that all of her older peers think that she is "just a little kid, really."

    I wonder if this is related to the mess with that one (super-sick) peer who played head games with her extensively starting about a year ago. :sigh: I wouldn't doubt it. She's still downright frightened to run into him.



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    Hmmm. I don't know what to offer, really. There's a reason she's seeking out her age peers, but what stands out for me is that these age peers throw punches at her self-esteem. I think that would concern me most. And I wonder if a lot of girls are vunerable to this kind of thing. I would worry that it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy as I think you might be.

    Now that it's summer are there any summer camps in which she could be re-invigorated by her academic peers and get to fully experience her own power and uniqueness? Any place she can be with her people?

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    Wow - I can't give you any real advice but you have my sympathy. I can understand why your dd may want to gravitate toward her age-mates but younger kids? Although even that is not a real problem. The big concern is that these kids are so mean to her. It isn't even all that subtle. Surely your dd can see through some of that? Any chance you can recruit her two real friends to help her see what's happening? If this continues, it may be advisable to get some professional input to avoid any real damage. You are right to be concerned.

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    Well, she doesn't SEEM to form very deep friendships with them, so it isn't like she is allowing much access to her inner/authentic self.

    My actual concern is more that she isn't opening herself up to authentic friendships much, either.

    She seems to be operating on risk-avoidance rather than seeking friendships.


    The part that I'm most concerned with:

    a) she's not building a repertoire (or practicing one) that will allow her to operate socially in a collegiate setting with older peers-- in other words, she's setting herself up to be aloof/alone/isolated from college peers, and

    b) she's deliberately dumbing down to the point that there is now spillover. She's actually suppressing things that she has known for years. It's very disconcerting. This really freaked me out as she did practice exams for her SAT's. I swear that a year ago, she WOULD have had perfect scores-- effortlessly, and probably even two or three years ago would have. Now she is struggling, and some struggles even with vocabulary (which is beyond my ability to even understand it, frankly). Very much "what in the HECK??" territory.


    I'm concerned also that this might be a manifestation of either her PTSD-like feelings having survived a brush with a NPD (older) peer who attempted to use her, or that this is about her perfectionism and is really just risk-averse behavior.

    She has been VERY oppositional and refuses to work with a mental health professional, incidentally. We've tried to get her to work with a therapist several times in the past five years, but she WILL NOT do it. This is too bad on the one hand because we'd like for her to have the ability to do that, but just as well on the other since it's all out of pocket anyway. Anyway-- whatever we do is likely to need to be DIY, because a therapist is a waste of time and $ for us here unless she decides to become cooperative. Which is about as likely as her learning to fly to the moon, imo.


    Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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    Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
    She has been VERY oppositional and refuses to work with a mental health professional, incidentally. We've tried to get her to work with a therapist several times in the past five years, but she WILL NOT do it. This is too bad on the one hand because we'd like for her to have the ability to do that, but just as well on the other since it's all out of pocket anyway. Anyway-- whatever we do is likely to need to be DIY, because a therapist is a waste of time and $ for us here unless she decides to become cooperative. Which is about as likely as her learning to fly to the moon, imo.

    So she's going to learn the hard way, then.

    I'm not seeing a positive outcome here, to tell you the truth.

    Sounds like she's kind of deciding to be stubborn, which means that the outcome is pretty much obvious to everyone but her.

    Last edited by JonLaw; 06/10/13 09:51 AM.
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    HK, I'm so sorry to hear that your DD is going through this rough patch.

    This, too, shall pass, but I'd want to better understand why she's suddenly decided the fit is poor with her ability "peers". Was there a precipitating event that she has internalized but not voiced to you? Was there a subtle dynamic to her group that you didn't observe but which changed? Did she take a more than platonic interest in an older boy and get rebuffed? Have the older girls she socialized with begun to perceive her as competition and backed off? Is she internalizing academic stress or perceiving the next step with any anxiety?

    Lots of questions, I know, but my sense from your brief exposition is that she isn't being attracted to the younger children, but is recoiling from some aspect of living as an older person. Obviously this isn't an experienced parenting opinion, but I have BTDT somewhat as an accelerated preteen and can sympathize personally with your DD. Life became complicated quickly around 13-14 when older friends' boyfriends/crushes took an interest in me. The social blowback was debilitating and required basically bottomless self-esteem to overcome it.


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    Originally Posted by aquinas
    Lots of questions, I know, but my sense from your brief exposition is that she isn't being attracted to the younger children, but is recoiling from some aspect of living as an older person. Obviously this isn't an experienced parenting opinion, but I have BTDT somewhat as an accelerated preteen and can sympathize personally with your DD.

    this was my thought too - any chance this is related to the college discussions and tours and she is just afraid of the upcoming changes and is reverting to not be "ready"

    DeHe

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    my sense from your brief exposition is that she isn't being attracted to the younger children, but is recoiling from some aspect of living as an older person.


    It's my sense, as well. She definitely doesn't seem HAPPY about it.

    As MoN notes, she probably has a very good idea what she is doing, and why. Though... I have to wonder what was up with the recent regressive stuff with school/language. There's something going on, though, because when we've called her on it (why are you using less sophisticated vocabulary than two years ago), she responds as though we've touched a nerve.

    The older NPD peer really did a number on her-- and yes, there was a component of boy-girl stuff there, and no, it wasn't in her head... but it WAS some kind of sicko head-game.

    The few times we've convinced her of the need for therapeutic intervention, sadly, her initial point of contact was underwhelming. Being like MoN's child, she has decided that most of those people aren't intelligent enough to even bother listening to her, never mind actually understanding her inner landscape. With that being the case, how on earth are they supposed to HELP her? Unfortunately, my own experience is mixed enough that I can't unilaterally tell her that such a view is incorrect. Some of the time it IS correct-- been there, done that. I have wasted months of sessions with someone who just plain wasn't 'getting' me well enough to be of any use whatsoever.

    (My apologies to any mental health professionals present or reading.)







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    I am with the others and wondering if "something happened". It doesn't take much with a guy to have it really blown out of proportion in the brain of a 14 year old. To go really safe with younger kids makes me think that.

    And those academic peers are at an age where they are experimenting with a lot of stuff, chemical, physical. I would think exposure would be overwhelming for a 14 year old.

    This is the thing we all struggle with and write about on this forum. The younger kid who can handle the academic but is thrown into the social lives of kids years older. When I skipped, there were others around me in the same state. Being the only kid that age in an setting like school must be very difficult.

    Good luck.

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